Yaay, my Sansa Rhapsody player supports non-DRM AAC files.

Of course, the Rhapsody player also offers the best music subscription support of any player in America. So my player is pretty jam packed full of Rhapsody channels and music already. Still, Apple has a few bands the other services lack (and vice versa).

Hey, the Helio Ocean phone I'm planning on getting supports AAC too!

Hopefully by then I'll have a Helio Ocean... half the price with 3G, GPS, PlaysForSure, over the air music purchases, steaming video, retractable keyboards (one for dialing, one for typing), the ability to shoot and send video, full web browsing with the ability to save pictures off web pages, etc.

I can't wait to see a full review of this thing. The list of clever features is out of this world!

Checked out their web page. 3G web browsing with full keyboard. GPS that tells you where you are (via Google Maps), where your friends are, where businesses are, and where you took your pictures. 2 megapixel camera that does video. Plays for Sure music with stereo Bluetooth and over-the-air music downloads. Streaming video, Micro SD, Mobile MySpace blogging, Gmail, bright screen, 3D gaming, etc. And no Windows Mobile! Please, sweet Jesus, let it not be buggy!

DO YOU HEAR ME JESUS???

It's like the Sidekick 9! :-)

They need to start offering comics. Every comicbook being published is already available on bittorrent networks. Why not charge for them?

>What about cut-and-paste? Smartphone Edition required hacks just to let you cut-and-paste while typing an email. Did M$ ever add that, or are we stuck hacking this OS, too?

Are you kidding me? Even my Sidekick can do that (and it doesn't give me "out of memory" messages, the way my Pocket PC always did).

This seems like another one of those services that's designed by the studios to fail. Charge as much as a DVD for a computer file, but without the extras, no burning to disk and no cross-platform compatibility. I think the strategy of the studios is to charge as much as possible to preserve their DVD sales, and then gradually sweeten the deal as minimally as they can until consumers get on board. At this rate, there should be a viable movie download service in about 10 years.

Really though, no rentals? Not interested. I'll stick with Netflix and their combined offering of DVDs and streaming movies.

The last week I checked (the week of January 21) the Wii was outselling the PS3 in Japan 4 to 1. And that's with plentiful PS3s over there, and the PS3 already having a lower price in Japan. Why should a price cut in the US be any more effective, especially if it just triggers a price drop in the XBox 360?

Billy, consider the Sansa E200R. You not only get the album art, but you get biographies of the bands on your player (when used with Rhapsody). It'll also let you fill your player with close to 130 "Rhapsody Music Channels". Which is to say, if you drag "Celtic" to your player, it'll load 3-4 hours of Celtic music to your player. And after you listen to it, it'll automatically refresh that music with a different 3-4 hours of Celtic music the next time you sync. (If any of it REALLY grabs you, you can save the track to your library with a click on your player, or even buy the track if you think you need to own it for some reason.) And the "Rhapsody DNA" it uses for subscription music works MUCH nicer than PlaysForSure (although the E200R supports that too).

And yes, it plays video too, though it needs to be converted to Quicktime with a provided converter program. And it plays and records the radio, and is expandable. Word is, the Sansa Connect will offer all this, and throw in full wi-fi support as well.

And no, I don't work for them. But I do dig the player (though the coming Rhapsody-enabled Clix2 from iRiver will probably top it).

I gotta say, I don't understand the concept. Shouldn't ANY wi-fi connection be a "filling station"?

The Sansa Connect still sounds better to me...